25 Percent Loan Seekers Under 30 Years Of Age: Cibil

MUMBAI: There has been a huge rise in the number of people under 30 years of age seeking credit in the last five years, according to credit information provider Cibil report. While those under 30 years constituted just around 7 percent of the new credit applicants in 2008 and the same has grown to over 25 percent now, the Cibil report said.

Interestingly, eagerness shown by youth in getting indebted comes at a time when people have been complaining about bleak times on the economic front due to falling growth, which also led to some job losses, the report said. Till FY 2008-09, the economy was doing very well and the same has now plummeted and logging even a 5 percent growth is also seemed to be an uphill task this fiscal, it said.

Cibil further said it could be noted that the demographics have undergone a radical shift in the past decade, with the country getting more “younger”, i.e. The percentage of working age population (between 15 and 35) growing rapidly. The percentage of those under 40 years applying for their first credit has gone up to 60 percent in 2014, from the 50 percent mark in 2008, the report said.

“Youth are driving credit growth with 60 percent of new loan applications coming from applicants, who are under 40,” it said. With the economic growth facing troubles, coupled with a sense of “policy paralysis”, lenders have been focusing very hard on the retail segment for growth as the project loans are not coming at all, the report said. According to the Cibil, which has completed 10 years of operations, retail credit growth has driven an increase in its credit reports usage at loan origination. The credit information company said in the last five years, bulk of the growth has come from personal loans and two wheeler loan segments, followed by home loans.

Cibil claimed the data it produces, and prudent risk management policies, have resulted in fewer delinquencies in banks’ retail portfolios. It said the NPA rate of around 1.9 percent in 2010 has declined to 1.3 percent in 2013. “There is almost 30 percent reduction in NPA rates over the last four years,” it said. In what it claimed is representative of the increasing usage of credit scores, Cibil said over 80 percent of the credit active population has a Cibil score of greater than 750.

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